The U.S. economy entered a recession in December 2007, a committee of economists at the private National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday.

The economy reached a peak of activity in December 2007 and has been declining since, according to the business cycle dating committee of the NBER.

The government, academics and the private sector generally defer to the NBER’s judgments about recessions.

The committee does not judge a recession as two consecutive quarterly declines in gross domestic product; rather, it examines quarterly data along with four key monthly economic indicators: employment, incomes, industrial output and sales.

Employment and incomes peaked in December, industrial output peaked in January, and sales peaked in June, the NBER committee said.

The committee’s definition of a recession is as follows: “A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators.”

No kidding. Thats why I made this post a year ago warning about an impending recession (or depression). Seriously, how much are they paying these people?

The important point here is that with this admission there’s the underlying reality that pretty much every official government and media source has been either completely wrong or blatantly lying to us for the past year saying the “economy is great”. More analysis here.

One Response

According to Keynes, the root cause of an economic downturns is an insufficient aggregate demand. When the total demand for goods and services declines, businesses throughout the economy see their sales fall off. Lower sales induce firms to cut back production and to lay off workers. Rising unemployment and declining profits further depress demand, leading to a feedback loop with a very unhappy ending.

90% of the time you can make statistics show whatever you want 50% of time